The implications of changes in family structures for the distribution of wealth and policy intervention (TENTATIVE!)

Families are changing. Research has shown that the trend towards smaller households has been one of the determinants of the increase in household income inequality observed in rich countries in the last decades. The impacts of new forms of families for the distribution of wealth and the transmission of wealth across generations could be even stronger. Cowell and Van de gaer (2017) and Cowell et al. (2019) theoretically demonstrate how the way wealth is transmitted from parents to multiple children can dramatically change the long-run distribution of wealth. This topic therefore proposes to study, first, how changes in household formation has affected recent trends in wealth inequality, then, using microsimulation, survey experiments and/or policy impact assessment to explore the implications of changes in family formation (including single-parent but also more complex 'rainbow' families) for the distribution of wealth in the long-run and how tax and transfer policy would play out in this context.